Bill Evans and Bill Purdy: two Sydney veterans of the D-Day landings

D-Day veterans: Bill Evans (left) and Bill Purdy in fine form at Mosman RSL Club on Friday. Photo: Tamara Dean

They were strangers 70 years ago, but were fighting for a common cause. Both were called Bill, both were Lancaster bomber aviators and both were risking their lives in the murky skies over France.

Their mission: to gain aerial dominance ahead of the allied beach landings on June 6, 1944, otherwise known as D-Day and the climactic battle of World War II.

Bill Evans, 90, from Sylvania, was a wireless operator and air gunner - meaning he replaced any other gunners if they were shot on the job.

Bill Purdy, 91, from Mosman, was a pilot (and still flies light aircraft) with the RAAF's 463 Squadron.

Advertisement

At Mosman RSL on Friday, the pair met to share a drink and a few memories before travelling together, along with six other Australian veterans, to France at the end of the month to mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Mr Purdy, who received the Distinguished Flying Cross, recalled how the invasion was planned for June 5, but postponed due to the weather.

''We had two targets, firstly a radar station and secondly five naval guns off a place called Pointe du Hoc on the headland between Omaha and Utah beaches, where the Americans were to come in,'' he said. ''It had to be eliminated, and as usual, we made sure it was eliminated. There were probably 140 Lancasters each carrying 14 1000-pound bombs. We dropped them all into an area less than a city block. We went down through cloud all the way to the targets.

''For the first time ever, we knew the big day had arrived because the whole of the sea, as far as the eye could see, was just a mass of ships. It was a very impressive sight, and the world will never see anything like that again.''

He said the first wave of allied troops were approaching the beaches as they headed back to base. ''We had bacon and eggs and went to bed before we were rudely awakened again.''

Mr Evans has his flying log book, with many of the entries in red indicating they were night-time raids. ''We bombed and we couldn't see the ground at all,'' he said.

''We didn't even know it was D-Day until we got home.''

On his lapel is a brass caterpillar. It indicates he parachuted to safety after his aircraft was shot down during a night raid a month later.

''We were on our way home and two JU88s got us,'' he said. ''We had no engines at all. What do you do? So you jump out, and that's what we did.

''Two didn't get out - Frank Adams from Queensland, and I can't think of the other bloke's name.''

When Bill Evans went missing, the padre at his air base in England wrote to his father expressing deep sympathy that his son was missing. The letter, still tucked inside the logbook, reads like an obituary.

''We do hope news of his safety and welfare may reach you, even though he could be a prisoner of war. I commend you to the kind mercies of god and pray that his presence may comfort and sustain you as you wait and hope,'' the padre wrote.

The news was good. Bill met French Resistance helpers and lived in a forest for two months before a group of US troops stumbled on his camp and assisted his return to friendly soil.

Bill was among those who returned safely to Australia at the end of the war.